Ekaterina Malkina, young resident of Mariupol, who had won the international genius Olympiad in 2018, told reporters about her project on non-waste polyethylene recycling using larvae of beetles.
The schoolgirl in one sentence outlined the operation principle of a bottomless trash can, which will be able to solve the world’s ecological problem.
“We load in a mass ratio the amount of material to be disposed and larvae into a container, and larvae eat this material for a certain period of time, processing it for carbon dioxide and water,” – Ekaterina told journalists about her technology.
At the same time, one larva is capable of processing a whole polyethylene bag per day, which naturally decomposes for more than a hundred years.
According to Ekaterina, the method she proposed can be used both in countries where the waste sorting is developed, and in Ukraine, where sorting is only being introduced.
So, the landfills which will sort waste began to be built in the Donetsk region in 2017. They will be located in the regional centers: Kramatorsk, Volnovakha, Kurakhovo and Mariupol.
According to Sergey Natrus, the Head of Department of Ecology of the Donetsk Regional State Administration, this year it is planned to put into operation polygons with complex waste sorting in Kramatorsk, Volnovakha, and by the end of the year in Kurakhovo. After that, in Mariupol.
However, the head of the department had not known about the developments of the schoolgirl from Mariupol, but told reporters that he was ready to meet with Ekaterina and consider her technology. And if it is really effective, then the department is ready to introduce it in the regional centers.
In the meantime, Ekaterina conducts all research at her own expense and the next year she is going to go to Canada, where the Ukrainian diaspora gave her a scholarship to study in college.
